All beings change but God. All things change but heaven…Our circumstance may change. Our relations and friends may depart one by one. Our souls in a single day pass through many fluctuations of spiritual feeling. But He who chose us to be His own, and who has kept us to the present moment, is our covenant God and Father forever and ever, and will never throw us off and cast us away. “For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.”

~Octavius Winslow, Christ’s Sympathy to weary Pilgrims

Change seems to be one of the themes of every New Year. Many things have changed in our lives throughout this year; many things will be changing as we live through another year. Yet, in all these changes there is something that never changes. We know that Christ’s love and promise to save will be as strong for his children has it has always been and will always be. We can look, through this truth, upon all the changes which have happen and will happen and see them with hope and courage.

‘Jesus’ is a very encouraging name to heavy-laden inners. He who is King of Kings and Lord of lords might lawfully have taken some more high-sounding title. But he did not do so. the rulers of this world have often called themselves Great, Conqueror, Bold, Magnificent, and the like. The Son of God was content to call himself ‘Saviour’. The souls thich desire salvation may draw near to the Father with boldness, and have access with confidence through Christ. It is his office and his delight to show mercy. ‘God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved’ (John 3:17).

~J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Matthew, p.5

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Come, Thou long expected Jesus Born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, Let us find our rest in Thee. Israel’s Strength and Consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear Desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver, Born a child and yet a King, Born to reign in us forever, Now Thy gracious kingdom bring. By Thine own eternal Spirit Rule in all our hearts alone; By Thine all sufficient merit, Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

The action of the Holy Spirit (coupled with the absence of conception ‘by the will of man’, J. 1:13) points to the sovereign newness of the work God is accomplishing,

While Mary is involved in the virgin conception she is completely passive in it, because it is the direct result of the mysterious action of the Holy Spirit. Here, as Barth underlined, over against the place given to Mary by the Roman Catholic theology, the active contribution of humanity in providing salvation is nullified.

The human nature which was assumed by the Son of God was created ex nihilo, but was inherited through Mary. It is our human nature, ‘addicted to so many wretchedness’, as Calvin vividly puts it. Subject to the pains and temptations of this life, his human natured needed to be acted upon by the Holy Spirit in order to be sanctified.

Only by the work of the Spirit could the divine person of the Logos assume genuine human nature, come ‘in the likeness of sinful man’ (Rom 8:3), and yet remain ‘holy, harmless, undefiled’ (Heb. 7:26, AV), ‘the holy one’ (Lk. 1:35).

The revelation of the virgin conception by the Spirit forbids any adoptionist Christology.

There is no room for the notion that the man Jesus of Nazareth becomes the Son of God by adoption….The modern addiction to a Christology exclusively ‘from below’ is a truncated pneumatology as well as a deformed Christology.

The conception of Jesus by the Spirit underlines both his identification with our frailty (he assumes our nature at its smallest and weakest) and his essential distinctiveness, not in relation to the reality of his humanity but in relation to his liability to guilt.

The work of the Spirit preserves both the reality of his union with us in genuine human nature, and his freedom from the guilt and curse of Adam’s fall (Rom 5:12-21).

The conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit is the mode by which the Father’s sending of the Son is effected. As such, it underlines the principle that, in the work of redemption which Christ spearheads, each person of the Trinity is engaged.

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matthew 1:23)

The first thing which we ought to consider in this name is the divine majesty of Christ, so as to yield to him the reverence which is due to the only and eternal God. But we must not, at the same time, forget the fruit which God intended that we should collect and receive from this name. For whenever we contemplate the one person of Christ as God-man, we ought to hold it for certain that, if we are united to Christ by faith, we possess God.

~John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists

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From the squalor of a borrowed stable,
By the spirit and a virgin’s faith;
To the anguish and the shame of scandal
Came the Saviour of the human race!
But the skies were filled, with the praise of heav’n,
Shepherds listen as the angels tell
Of the Gift of God, come down to man
At the dawning of Immanuel

King of heaven now the Friend of sinners,
Humble servant in the Father’s hands,
Filled with power and the Holy Spirit,
Filled with mercy for the broken man
Yes he walked my road, and He felt my pain,
Joys and sorrows that I know so well;
Yet His righteous steps, give me hope again –
I will follow my Immanuel!

Through the kisses of a friend’s betrayal,
He was lifted on a cruel cross;
He was punished for a world’s transgressions,
He was suffering to save the lost
He fights for breath, He fights for me
Loosing sinners from the claims of hell;
And with a shout, our souls are free –
Death defeated by Immanuel!

Now He’s standing in the place of honour,
Crowned with glory on the highest throne,
Interceding for His own beloved
Till His Father calls us to bring them home!
Then the skies will part, as the trumpet sounds
Hope of heaven or the fear of hell;
But the Bride will run, to her Lover’s arms,
Giving glory to Immanuel!

‎“What God did when He sent His Son into the world is an absolute guarantee that He will do everything He has promised to do.”

~Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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A tender shoot has started
up from a root of grace,
as ancient seers imparted
from Jesse’s holy race;
It blooms without a blight,
blooms in the cold bleak winter
turning our darkness into light.

This shoot, Isaiah taught us,
from Jesse’s root should spring;
the Vrigin Mary brought us
the branch of which we sing:
our God of endless might
gave her this child to save us,
thus turning darkness into light.